Boring!

The latest: I-Flow itself, which has been trying to sell InfuSystem to HAPN – has now itself bought 15% of HAPN from holders-of-record-August 6, along with their rights to vote in favor of the merger.

Nothing is certain until it’s certain, but on a day the Dow dropped 366 points (nearly 3%), HAPN closed up 8 cents, at $5.45, and the warrants, HAPNW, held firm at at 37 cents.

Another stock that did okay Friday was AII – Aldabra 2 – unchanged at $9.43 on more than half a million shares . . . while the warrants (symbol AII+ on Ameritrade) closed up 12 cents at $1.85 on good volume.

Not to say they won’t all plunge today. Or that other of the stocks I’ve suggested did as well. They did not. Wa-Moooooo was down to $29.09 (and the smart friend who likes it bought more). FMD and CBH were both off half a dollar to dip under $39. And Borealis, at $6 and change, is now barely double where it was when I first started writing about it eight years ago (!!!), before the plane moved or the iron ore was more than lore.

But is any of this giving me gray hairs? Not if you judge by my photo, upper left, which looks no different from when it was taken 10 or 15 years ago.

FOREIGN FUNDS

Last week, with the Dow around 14,000, I wrote: ‘The dollar has fallen spectacularly under Republican management. Where the euro bought just 85 cents when George Bush appeared to win the presidency at the end of 2000, it bought $1.42 last night. (So in euro terms, the Dow is not 14,000, up from 11,000 – it’s 8,400, down from 11,000.)’

A couple of you questioned the math. But here’s what I meant. At the same time the Dow was 11,000, in November of 2000, the euro bought only 85 cents. If it still did, then it would be fair to say that – to someone holding euros – the Dow had risen smartly to 14,000 . . . which nominally it has. But the euro does not still buy only 85 cents, it buys about $1.42. So the euro has appreciated 67% against the dollar. Or, looked a different way, the dollar is down 40% versus the euro. If you knock 40% off 14,000, you get 8,400.

Jeff Schwarz: ‘But what if Hillary (or other responsible person) is elected President and closes our deficits (either with tax raises, cost cuts, growth, other, or mix). Wouldn’t the dollar start to do better?’

☞ Very possibly, but I think this aircraft carrier will not be quick to turn around.

PS – I promised to be less boring this week – but I didn’t say which day this week.